


Tilly Time

by LadyDrace



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Autism, Domestic, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Kid Fic, M/M, Single Parent Derek, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2329745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyDrace/pseuds/LadyDrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Derek gets a gift he never knew he wanted, but some gifts come at a high price. A price Derek never questions. Until Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tilly Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a quick little ficlet for [Daniel](http://mooseandtrickster.tumblr.com/), but then it kinda took off and became insanely personal, seeing as my own 5-year old darling is autistic, and I have experienced all of these things first hand. I don't know how these things work in the US, so the process is pretty much just copied from the Danish way of doing things. I apologize for any inconsistencies.
> 
> Super quick beta by the amazing [Mithrel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel). All mistakes are still mine.

Derek hadn't planned on becoming a single dad at 22. Hell, he hadn't really planned for anything much at that point. He was fine just being in college, studying something he would most likely never need in the real world, and trying to forget that most of his family was dead.

 

But then Jennifer told him that she was pregnant. And that she was going to get rid of it. And Derek's whole world flipped. He begged and pleaded and bribed until she agreed to carry the child to term and sign it over to him. Their relationship was already long dead at that point, but when a smiling nurse put the red-faced, squished, angry little bundle in his arms, several months later, Derek's life was changed forever.

 

Jennifer had never wanted a family, never made any secret of her ambitions, and only gave herself a week or so to recover on Derek's dime at a fancy hotel before leaving town. Derek was left with a dozen or so small bottles of precious breast milk, which Jennifer had been kind enough to provide, a significantly slimmer bank account... and a baby daughter.

 

Mathilda “Tilly” Hale, named so after her great grandmother, was a round-faced, willful little ball of chaos who cried her way through the first year or so of her life. Derek gave up on his degree for a while to stay home and rock her for hours and hours and _hours,_ every colicky night.

 

It was a nightmare. Derek was stressed and terrified and so, _so_ in love with the little ball of rage he'd somehow fathered, that he would be willing to go through the same ten times over for just one of her extremely rare smiles.

 

As she grew she stopped crying as much, but started yelling and screaming instead. She was wild, like a living tornado, and Derek was convinced that he was fucking her up somehow, that her acting out was somehow his fault, and that someone else would do better for her. But he was just too selfish and scared of more loss to give her up, and by the time she was old enough to start daycare he had resigned himself to forever feeling out of his depth, and accepting the judging stares of everyone who ever witnessed her having yet another public tantrum.

 

Her daycare was bright, airy and cozy, with laughing children everywhere, and looked like the kind of place well-adjusted kids went, and Derek hated himself for thinking that Tilly would never fit in there. She was assigned to the Daisy group (apparently there was a flower theme) and the daycare worker in charge of her group (“All the kids call me Stiles, pronouncing my actual name is like child abuse.”) was a sweet, slender young man with big brown eyes and surprisingly strong arms, no doubt a result of carrying around kids all day.

 

Tilly screamed her way through the first visit until Stiles produced some waterbased paints that distracted her for about ten minutes, long enough for her to get it all over her clothes and face, while Derek signed papers and hovered nervously, waiting for the next tantrum. It came when Derek wanted her to at least wash the paint off her hands before they left, and Derek could have joined her in tearful frustration by the end. Stiles watched as the screaming finally subsided, and Tilly sniffled her way through a reluctant cleaning session.

 

“I'm gonna go ahead and ask you something here, Mr. Hale, and you have every right to tell me to shut up, but...”

 

Derek tensed, because it always started there. The _good advice_. The well-meaning assumptions that Derek hadn't already tried anything and everything he could think of to make his baby girl happy.

 

“... have you considered having a psychiatrist check her out?”

 

Even Tilly reacted with a little hiccup to her Daddy's sudden tension. “Are you _kidding_ me? She's four years old! She doesn't need _therapy!_ ”

 

Stiles smiled wryly. “No, of course she doesn't. But she might need a diagnosis. I think she might have autism or ADD.”

 

Derek's mind whirled. He felt like screaming at Stiles to butt the hell out, that there was nothing wrong with Tilly, that _Derek_ was the one fucking everything up, just like he always had... but a tiny voice in the back of his head couldn't help but pipe up that it was actually something he hadn't considered. And if it could _help_...

 

“You really think so?” Derek asked quietly, not sure if this was a good or bad thing. What if she would be labeled a special needs case for the rest of her life? But then again, what if insisting she was like everyone else would be like ignoring a serious illness?

 

“I'm not really an expert,” Stiles said with a shrug. “But I happen to have ADD myself. A tiny pill twice a day and some extra help through elementary school pretty much saved my life. Not to mention my dad's sanity.”

 

It sounded too good to be true, so of course Derek was immediately suspicious. It must have been obvious on his face, because Stiles held up his hands defensively. “Look, just think about it. Tilly is definitely still welcome here either way, even if it turns out she needs a little more space or predictability. There's no law that says you have to accept whatever the psychiatrist says, but... it can't hurt to hear what they might have to say, right?”

 

Derek couldn't argue with that, and two weeks later an overpriced, but very professional child psychiatrist spent an hour with Tilly and Derek, talking, playing and watching, and before the first session was even over, the good doctor already had a pretty decent idea what might be going on.

 

Stiles didn't even raise an eyebrow when Derek came by the daycare again with the news that Tilly was autistic.

 

She enrolled a few months later a changed child. Therapy sessions helped Derek understand his daughter's needs, and the part time caregiver he'd hired, who had a list of credentials longer than his arm, suddenly meant that one day Derek faced having a life of his own again as Tilly was in daycare, and every day was no longer one, long, exhausting tantrum.

 

So he started working on his degree again, picked up his beautiful girl from daycare, and there were more and more days between her screaming sessions as her environment was adjusted slightly around her, making her feel safer and happier every day.

 

The first time she snuggled up to Derek to watch cartoons before bed and sleepily slurred: “luff you, Daddy,” Derek cried for the first time since his life burned.

 

“Love you too, Tilly, baby.”

 

Stiles became Tilly's new favorite person, especially since it became obvious when she wasn't screaming with frustration that Tilly was in fact very intelligent, and she caught on to the fact that Stiles was kinda like her. And everything Stiles did was awesome, so naturally, Tilly fully believed that to become awesome herself she would have to be like Stiles.

 

So no one should really have been surprised when Tilly ran up to Derek one day at pick-up time and yelled: “hello dude Daddy!” with a huge smile on her face, Stiles following behind bashfully.

 

“I am _so_ sorry, man, she must have picked up on my bro-talk.”

 

“It's fine,” Derek said, still a little dazed from the enthusiastic welcome, and hoisted Tilly up on his arm. Stiles came in close and fixed Tilly with a serious gaze.

 

“Remember we talked about this, Tilly? Don't call Daddy dude.”

 

Tilly frowned adorably. “Bu', Diles, you said dude means man, and Daddy's a man!”

 

Stiles looked a little flushed, and up close like this Derek got a delightful view of his pink cheeks. “Uh, yeah, Daddy's definitely a man,” Stiles said. “But anyone can be a dude. I'm a dude, Melissa is a dude, and even _you_ can be a dude! But your Daddy is Daddy! It's not nice for you to call him dude.”

 

“Really, Stiles, it's fine.”

 

“Yeah, Diles! Dude Daddy says 's fine!”

  
“Yeah, _Diles_ ,” Derek echoed with a smirk.

 

Stiles narrowed his eyes at Derek. “You're not tiny and cute enough to call me Diles, Mr. Hale.”

 

“You're cute enough to call me Derek, though,” Derek blurted, and _holy shit_ , did he actually just say that? He hadn't even been remotely interested in anyone romantically since before Tilly was born, and here he was flirting with her caretaker?! Having a life of his own outside of Tilly's needs was obviously something Derek was rusty at.

 

“Oh... sh- _oot_ , that was _so_ inappropriate, I'm so sorry, Stiles-”

 

“No-no, it's fine-”

 

“No, it's _not_ fine, I shouldn't be flirting with you, oh, _God_ -”

 

“Don't worry abou- hey, wait, whu- _flirting_?!”

 

Tilly looked from Stiles to Derek and back again, giggling nervously, because she was perfectly aware that something interesting was happening, but she couldn't quite grasp what.

 

“I, uh,” Derek mumbled, feeling heat rise to his face. “Yeah, uhm.”

 

Stiles stared at him, but a wide smile was slowly settling on his face. “Dude... that is _awesome_!”

 

“ _DUDE!_ ” Tilly yelled gleefully, and Derek laughed and hid his eyes behind his hand, mortified.

 

That didn't stop him from saying yes when Stiles asked him out, though.

 

End.

 


End file.
